Garment holder



Dec. 11, 1962 l.. s. RELLER ErAL 3,057,917

GARMENT HOLDER Filed Aug. 19, 1959 United States Patent h'fice 3,067,917 Patented Dec. il, 1962 3,067,917 GNT HOLDER Louis S. Relier and Lucille S. Relier, both of R.F.D. 4, Washington, Iowa Filed Aug. 19, 1959, Ser. No. 834,795 2 Claims. (Cl. 223-91) This invention relates to a device Yfor supporting clothing and more particularly to a garment holding device that successlully retains the clothing against accidental detachment therefrom.

Coat or garment hangers are very old. The type most used is formed from a single wire rod to form two wing portions and a centrally located top hook. This hook is adapted to detachably extend over a horizontal supporting rod, bracket, wall, nail, or like. While such Ihangers are `successful in holding relatively heavy buttoned coats, they are not successful in holding lightweight, iiinisy garments, such as dresses, blouses, formals, slips, or like. With such garments, the shoulders-trap portions slide downwardly and outwardly on the arcuate bar and, having passed the outer end or ends of the bar, drop from the hanger. Furthermore, lifting the hanger and garment onto or fromI a horizontal closet supporting bar is most difticult to accomplish without the garment slipping ol of the hanger. Also, in removing or replacing other adjacent loaded hangers, the garment-s are often accidentally removed and dropped from their respective hangers.

Herebefore, an eiiort has been made by us to provide economical clips for Wire type coat hangers, such as illustrated in our co-pending application Serial Number 725,- 842, filed April 2, 1958, now Patent No. 2,913,158, on a Garment Retaining Means for Metal Wire Coat Hangers. While this disclosed invention did solve many of the problems encountered, the clips had an objectionable tendency to rotate laterally on the wire rod coat hanger.

Therefore, one of the principal objects of this invention is to provide a coat hanger having garment retaining means thereon that is held from undesirable lateral rotation.

A further object of this invention is to provide a plastic garment holding and retaining device that permits its lower bar portion to be unlatched for the easy placement of certain garments thereon.

A still further object of this invention is lto provide a garment retaining clip for a coat hanger that may be easily and quickly installed on the hanger portion.

A further object of our invention is to provide a garment securing means that may be easily and quickly adjusted to accommodate different types of garments and different widths of garments between the shoulder strap portions.

A still further object of our invention is to provide a garment fastening means that is easily and quickly actuated.

Still further objects of this invention are to provide an eflicient garment hanger that is economical in manufacture, durable in use, and refined in appearance.

These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Our invention consists in the construction, arrangements, and combination, of the various parts of the device, whereby the objects contemplated are attained as hereinafter more fully set forth, specifically pointed out in our claim-s, and illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a -front view of our garment hanger in use;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged View of the detachable locking portion of the lower bar of the hanger and is taken on line 22 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a perspective exploded View of one end portion of our hanger and illustrates the detachment of one end of the lower bar of the hanger;

FIG. 4 is an enlarged cross sectional view of the lower bar portion of the hanger taken on line 4 4 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is an enlarged cross sectional View of our device taken on line 5-5 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is an enlarged cross sectional view of our garment holder and retainer taken on line 6-6 of FIG. 3; and

`FIG. 7 is an enlarged underside View of the `free end of one of the lingers.

In these drawings we have used the numeral lil to generally designate our coat hanger having a top center hook portion 11, as shown in FIG. 1. Extending from this hook portion are the two top rod portions generally designated by the numerals 12 and 13, and which extend downwardly and outwardly away from each other. It is to these two rod or wing portions 12 and 13 that we detachably secure our garment retaining means. We use one clip for each of the portions 12 and 13. These clips are each of one piece and inasmuch as they are duplicates of each other, we will describe the structure of one only, it being understood that the description will apply equally to to either clip. The base portion 15 is in the form of an inverted trough having two downwardly extending spaced apart sides 16 and 17, as shown in FIG. 5. On the inner side of each of the sides 16 and 17 we form two lug projections 18 and 19. The two lugs 1S and 19 are spaced apart from each other and are diametrically opposite from the lugs 18 and 19 on the inner side of the other side of the inverted trough, as shown in FiG. 5 and FIG. 6. Also, the two lugs 18 and 19 are spaced a substantial distance from the inside top of the inverted trough 15. Formed on the upper edge' of each of the portions 12 and 13 is a bead portion Ztl, circular in cross section as shown in FlG. 5. Directly below the bead 20 is a web flange 21. When in use, the base Ior inverted trough portion 15 embraces the bead 26 and extends adjacent the two sides of the web flange portion Z1, as shown in FIG. 6. The numeral 22 designates a bead formed at the lower edge of the ange web portion 21, as `shown in FIG. 3. This bead portion 22 is merely for strengthening the portions 12 and 13 but does provide a good appearance to the hanger inasmuch as we recommend that the same be made of plastic. Extending from one end of the top 24 of the inverted trough is an arched spring finger 25. This linger extends from the inverted trough first forwardly, then upwardly and forwardly, then forwardly, and then downwardly and forwardly in a curved path. The free end of the iinger has a depression 26 on its under side to conform to the curvature of the bead portion 20, as shown in FIG. 3. Each of these clips may be made from any suitable material, such as metal or plastic but, if of plastic, a plastic should be selected that is of spring character so that when the clip is installed on the hanger, the linger 25 will yieldingly bear downwardly onto the bead portion Ztl.

One of our clips is snapped on each side wing or rod of the coat hanger, as shown in FIG. 1. When this is done, the inverted U-portion of the clip will embrace the bead 20 and the two lug projections 18 and 19 will be below the bead 20 and in engagement with the ange webbing 21, as shown in FIG. 5. Thus, to install a clip, it is merely necessary to manually force the inverted trough downwardly onto the coat hanger until the two lug projections 18 and 19 have passed to the webbing 21 below the bead 20. To permit this operation, the inverted trough portion 15 should also be of resilient character. These opposed lugs 13 and 19 will not only aid in frictionally, yieldingly holding the clip onto the coat hanger but Iwill yieldingly, frictionally hold the clip longi- 3 tudinally on the hanger wing. Furthermore, by the lugs itt and 19 engaging both sides of the web flange portion 21, the clip will be prevented from objectionable lateral rotation on the bead portion 20. Our two clip retainers may be manually longitudinally slid on the coat hanger for the adjustable positioning of the same and to meet garment requirements. The garment 27 is placed on 4the hanger and the spring iingers are raised over and beyond or onto the garment to be held, as shown in FIG. 1. To prevent the clips from being accidentally slid outwardly from the hanger, we have provided lug stops 30 on the outer areas of the web liange portion 21 as shown in FiG. 1. The clips may be unsnapped and removed from the hanger portion when desired. Also, if desired, the clips may be only partially unsnapped from the hanger, i.e., only the two lug projections 19 moved to an unsnappcd position above the bead 26. To permit this pivoting of the clip when desired, we have provided a cutaway portion 29 in the rear top 24 as shown in HG. 3. This partial unsnapping of the clip is shown by broKen lines in FIG. l.

The lower bar of the hanger is designated in general by the numeral 31 and is in general a continuation of the portions 12 and 13 curved downwardly and then inwardly, respectively. One end of this bar portion 31, however, is severed to permit detachment of one end for the purpose of sliding under or through certain garments. The severed area of the bottom bar 31, however, is lockable and we accomplish this by vertical splitting of the lower portion of the bar adjacent the severed area, and these two severed portions, designated by the numerals 32 and 33, respectively, are adapted to overlap each other, as shown in FIG. 3. To lock these overlapping portions, we have provided a lug portion 35 on the free end of the movable portion of the lower bar to extend downwardly and into notch 36 of the fixed portion of the hanger, and also a lug 37 on the iixed end of the hanger to extend into the notch 39 in the end portion of the movable part of the bar 31. These notches and lugs are opposed to each other as shown in FIG. 2 and when the two ends of the bar 31 are so adjoined together, the severed portion of the bar 31 will be locked longitudinally and downwardly. To unlock the bar portion 31, it need be only moved upwardly, as shown by the arrow in FIG. 3. Usually this bar 31 will be utilized to hold trousers or like, and to prevent the slippage of the same from the bar we have provided side grooves 40 in the upper portion of the bar 31, as shown in FIG. 4.

To further facilitate the lingers 25 to hold the garment on the hanger, the under free end of the fingers may be serrated, scored or grooved as shown in PEG. 7 and designated by the numeral 45.

Some changes may be made in the construction and arrangement of our garment holder without departing from the real spirit and purpose of our invention, and it is our intention to cover by our claims, any modified forms of structure or use of mechanical equivalents which may be reasonably included within their scope.

We claim: 1. A garment holder comprising in combination: a coat hanger including a pair of rod portions diverging downwardly and outwardly from each other and from a center hook portion;

each rod portion comprising in transverse cross section at least a circular bead and a web depending straight downwardly from the transverse center of the bead,

4 said web having a width less than the diameter of said bead;

a garment retaining clip slidably mounted on each rod portion and being of a iiexible material, each clip comprised of a U-shaped base portion mounted in an inverted position over a respective rod portion, with the legs of said base portion yieldably engaged only with opposite -sides of a circular bead, only a pair of lugs formed in each leg of said base portion along the lower edge thereof and adapted to engage the sides of a web, whereby to normally hold each clip against lateral movement relative to a rod portion, said pairs of lugs being transversely opposite each other, and the lugs of each pair being longitudinally spaced from each other relative to a rod portion, said clip comprising further an arched inger integral with and extended longitudinaliy away from one end of said base portion, with an outer free end of said finger yieldably engaged with the upper surface of a respective rod portion; and

means integral with each rod portion near the lower end thereof and adapted to limit the downward sliding movement of each clip.

2. A garment holder comprising in combination:

a coat hanger including a pair of rod portions diverging downwardly and outwardly from each other and from a center hook portion;

each rod portion comprising in transverse cross section at least a circular lbead and a web depending straight downwardly from the transverse center of the bead, said web having a width less than the diameter of said bead;

`a garment retaining clip slidably mounted on each rod portion and being of a iiexible material, each clip comprised of an inverted U-shaped base portion having parallel legs and yieldably mounted on a rod portion, the inner surface of each leg being flat and yieldably engaged only with a respective contiguous side surface of a circular bead, said legs yieldable away from each other, whereby said base portion is simultaneously movable vertically and longitudinally of a rod portion, only a pair of longitudinally spaced lugs formed on the inner surface of each leg and extended toward each other, said pairs of lugs adapted to engage the opposite sides of a web whereby to normally hold each clip against lateral movement relative to a respective rod portion, sai-d clip comprising further an arched finger integral with and extended longitudinally away from one end of said base portion, with an outer free end of said finger yieldably en gaged with the upper surface of a respective rod portion; and

a projection formed on at least one side of each web near the lower end of each rod portion for blocking the path of sliding movement of the clip on the respective rod portion.

References Cited in the tile of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,344,665 Weber June 29, 1920 2,123,518 Yankovitch July l2, 1938 2,492,287 Hogan DSC. 27, 1949 2,525,142 Levinson Oct. 10,1950 2,723,787 Bransdorf Nov. 15, 1955 2,913,158 Reller et al Nov. 17, 1959 

